Esophageal Varices

Esophageal varices you say, what are they? They are enlarged veins in your esophagus and are common in liver patients often with stage 3 liver disease or worse. My first case of esophageal varices was when I was 18 years old. They are occur when there is a blockage, like in my case it was scar tissue, for others it may be a clot. Due to the fact that there is a blockage the blood backs up and it causes the veins to enlarge which can lead to them bursting. The veins bursting can cause a life threatening bleed. In my case specifically, when doing my routine upper endoscopy we look for any new varices. If there are any esophageal varices found they do a treatment called rubber band ligation. Rubber band ligation is where they tie off the blood vessel to block its blood supply which over a course of 3-10 days the vessel will die and fall off. My first case of them led to needing 11 bands, which of course was the most the doctor had every done. After that I usually had 3-5 bands done, I’ve been lucky not to need any the past few times with the help of my beta blockers. Now it is important to know when having rubber band ligation done you have to be careful not to do any strenuous activities and not to lift much more than a gallon of milk. Strenuous activities and lifting can cause the bands to burst and cause potential further damage.